"I primarily applied to art school. It was the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. I was prepared for the exams by the academic painter Stanislav Kovář, who, by the way, was a teacher I had been going to since 1970 when he taught at the Primary Art School in Mladá Boleslav. I enrolled in applied graphics and illustration. I have the impression that this school was run by Zdeněk Sklenář. When I took the exams, it took about three days. There were talent tests, art theory and finally, interviews. I was surprised at the interviews because I was surprised at how this Zdeněk Sklenář looked. He was such a dapper-looking guy and he didn't talk to us about art at all. But he said there were many applicants and they could only take two, but not to worry, because those who didn't get into this school would be able to study teaching and they would be recommended. He asked me why I didn't join the youth union. At that moment, I could think of nothing better to say than that it was a ticket to the Communist Party, and I could not join it because I was a believer. The gentleman replied that it was good that I was already telling them about this, and I didn't get into the school. When I applied to the Faculty of Education, I didn't get in either. My parents and I wrote various other applications to schools of education, but all were rejected. I would like to add that the person who talked to us–I found out much later–was not Zdeněk Sklenář anymore because he had left the school sometime in 1976. And the gentleman who talked to us was probably some cadre guy."
"The Poles were the first to come to Mladá Boleslav. I remember that my mother made big posters, my father dictated them to her in Polish, and then she put them up in Kosmonosy. One somewhere on the hill and one she went to put up at the door of the municipal office. I wasn't there, of course. She used to tell us that when she wanted to put it up, an officer came from one of the tanks. He walked up to her, and she spread the poster in front of him. She said he made an unwitting movement as if he was reaching for his revolver. She said she was sweating at that moment, but then the officer just nodded and told her to stick it there. That was the end of it. Mum wrote some letters in Polish as well. There were Polish tanks on Husova Street because there were barracks on the corner of Žižkova and Havlíčkova Streets. She wrote a letter in Polish, probably explaining our attitude towards the occupation. She didn't know how to hand it to them, so she rode her bicycle and threw it into the tank. She didn't know how they would react at that moment and was glad when she rounded the corner and was out of sight."
"She was then persecuted by State Security in Jablonec, which, of course, tried to arrest her. It was also related to the fact that she refused to sign the sheets demanding the death of Milada Horáková and then the sheets demanding the death of Rudolf Slánský. State Security went after her, as well as another collaborator who did not sign [the sheets, transl.]. He did go to prison. My mother was lucky that when they chased her and tried to get her into the car, he snatched her away from them. Then she disappeared from Jablonec and returned to Kosmonosy. And her parents, in order to keep her safe somewhere, arranged with the Kosmonosy district doctor, Dr Štitch, who wrote a diagnosis, and she went to the Psychiatric Hospital in Kosmonosy for about fourteen days. Then he kept her on sick leave for another year."
Helena Šimková was born on 11 July 1957 in Mladá Boleslav into the evangelical family of Jiřina and Vilém Novák. In 1972, despite her poor academic profile, she managed to get a place at a grammar school in a newly opened class with extended language teaching. Four years later, she successfully graduated. As the grammar school administration did not recommend her for university for political reasons, she decided to enrol in a one-year language school, which she completed with a state examination in German and Russian. She then applied to the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, where she was not accepted because of her religious beliefs. After failing the entrance exams, she started working at the Škoda factory, where she made screws on a machine tool. Then, thanks to her acquaintances, she got a job at the Research Institute of Beetroot in Semčice, where she spent a year researching and interpreting. In 1978, she applied to study at the theological faculty again and this time succeeded. She participated in various youth retreats and apartment meetings with her friends, where she met, for example, Václav Havel. From 1982 she also went to church meetings in the German Democratic Republic, led by the evangelical pastor and later President Joachim Gauck. In the autumn of 1989, she was offered the opportunity to teach Czech in Leipzig, where she worked until March 1990. After that, she and her husband left for a parish in Kyjov and the witness found a job as a teacher at a Protestant church school in Brno. From 1994, Helena Šimková taught German and catechetics at the church conservatory in Kroměříž. At the time of filming (2023) she lived in Mladá Boleslav and still worked as a German teacher.
Helena Šimková ( on the right) and classmates from the Faculty of Theology Ján Semjan, Pavel Urban, Jiří Kučera, Ivan Vašín, Ester Doulová, Jana Jašová, 1979
Helena Šimková ( on the right) and classmates from the Faculty of Theology Ján Semjan, Pavel Urban, Jiří Kučera, Ivan Vašín, Ester Doulová, Jana Jašová, 1979
